Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System

Chapter 41 - I got carried away deleting stuff...

I stood at the front entrance with excitement building in my chest, the rapid beating almost like a hammer against my ribs.

"What will happen!?"

The apocalypse vanished from my mind along with all complicated thoughts.

I could see a huge green perimeter around the building outside and the hologram whenever focused on the system and thinking about buildings something.

To me, the apocalypse made complicated thoughts like dust.

There were two things I loved in life: Beautiful women and Games!

Once I learned about this part of my system. I found a little John inside my head whispering for me to loot each room, dismantle them and become rich!

Countless novels flashed through my mind, like the mansion in the last days and my military base harem.

However, then I took a deep breath.

Because a roaming zombie entered the perimeter and it turned RED. The selfish undead couldn't even die properly and interrupted my moment of glory.

"Haa..."

The sudden rush of adrenaline faded as I watched the old woman outside—her face looked mangled as she limped around in my vision. It was too annoying for me to rush out and kill her because more zombies would appear.

'Well, I should probably...'

Immediately, as I touched the door handle, she swayed, and her broken spine flopped out of the red perimeter.

Without waiting, I pressed the confirmation button.

I closed my eyes because the ground floor suddenly lit up with a neon blue light and hundreds of small boxes for various items, from the doors to walls, carpet and other miscellaneous objects.

My world became magical.

Earlier, in the safe area, I could mess with objects like clothes and the furniture, but once the ground floor became part of my safe zone. I could remodel it, change the decorations and even upgrade the door and hallway using materials.

It reminded me of that game where you could simulate an entire life. A game where most people would just lock people in a room with fireworks until they die. Or remove the steps and ladders from the pool.

"Phew...let's upgrade this door. What do I need?"

[Stage 1 Building]

Progress: [○○○○○]

Experience: 0/100

Area: Moonlit Terrace

[Deadbolt Entrance Door: Low Quality]

▼ Move

▼ Dismantle

▼ Repair

▼ Upgrade (5 Wood, 5 Metal, 10 Plastic, 3 Cloth)

'System how much do I need to pay to move things?'

▼ Survival Sub-System

- 10 ZKP to move heavy items within a safe zone for 30 minutes

- 5 ZKP to move light items within a safe zone for 30 minutes

[Heavy denotes items that one person cannot move alone, like a washing machine.]

[Light items are anything smaller than that.]

[Extra Tip: You can use the interface in a safe zone to target multiple items. Limited to 40]

So...

I gazed at the various bodies and wondered if I could dismantle them. The moment I did, a light green hue highlighted all the corpses. My eyes flicked through the options and found that I could only move and dismantle the bodies.

"I can't upgrade or repair them..."

It was a shame—maybe I could have made some cool zombie puppets.

"It saves time I guess, but can I delete them outside too..." My eyes flicked through the corpses, targeting them as the system interface taught me. I could point, glance or think about the object in my mind.

Poof—! Twenty corpses from the front of the building and the fifteen inside vanished instantly, and then a delightful sound echoed in my mind!

▼ Dismantled 40 Corpses

+ 400 ZKP

+ 10 Cloth

+ 40 Experience

'Okay... so it seems I get roughly 10 ZKP per corpse, and maybe more for a stage two, I should try with the brute's remains too.'

The cloth seemed to be random, or it needed a certain amount to grant one according to the system's rules. The moment I checked the system, my lips curled into a smirk. Because the 40 experience I gained also applied to my rank experience.

[System Warning: This will only apply to dismantling zombies.]

However, the evil system killed my fun and tossed a bucket of ice-cold water over my head.

To upgrade the front door. I needed to find a lot of items.

So, in normal gamer fashion, my eyes traced along the hallway of apartments on the ground floor and noticed I could tell if people lived in these places.

[Apartment 001 - Vacant]

[Apartment 002 - Vacant]

"Okay..." With a deep breath, thanks to the new cultivation technique, my lungs felt larger... taking me a moment to reach full capacity, before I blew out slowly and started my dismantling frenzy!

There was no limit to how much and what I could destroy or remove... beds, doors, microwaves and ovens. I ransacked and devoured everything.

Pictures of the previous families left on the shelves? Deleted!

Old gold and silver trophies from the war? Deleted!

An urn full of someone's ashes? Deleted!!

***

Almost an hour later, I sat in the centre of the hallway, my back on the ground and looking at the building interface with a sense of accomplishment. I stripped everything bare—the doors and items in each apartment were gone.

[System Complaint: The system should have created limits... how did this happen?]

Somehow, the system was crying in sadness, but it was me who wanted to cry. The moment I reached Stage two, I stopped getting experience when dismantling things!

▼ Building Status

Stage 2 Building

Progress: [○○○○○]

Experience: 0/200

Area: Moonlit Terrace

▼ Resources

[Wood: 120]

[Metal: 125]

[Cloth: 150]

[Plastic: 90]

▼ Currency

ZKP: 7450

EXP: 840/11000

—

The moment I finished, I gazed at the front door and took a deep breath.

Roulan had probably finished her business in the bathroom. So I could now head to the top floors and have more fun dismantling. Though, being honest, doing it in real life instead of a game felt strangely tiresome.

▼ Upgraded Deadbolt Entrance Door

- 30 Wood

- 50 Metal

- 15 Cloth

- 30 Plastic

+ 10 Experience 

[Deadbolt Entrance Door: High Quality]

A door resistant to all zombies below Stage Four.

I spent a huge amount of resources to upgrade the door twice, but what made me chuckle was that upgrading didn't happen instantly—there was a small timer ticking down. The door didn't change in reality, but a makeshift scaffolding image in the game interface with little men hitting it with hammers.

"What are you doing on the floor... Eh—!? What the hell happened to all the apartments?"

Jiang Roulan's voice suddenly woke me from the trance of watching the timer tick down, and finally, there was a sudden bang.

"What's going on? Is there a zombie!?" She became a little guarded, but her mouth dropped when the metal door, which she knew well, suddenly became like those thick high-tech doors you see in action movies that can endure bombs.

'Huh... the safety rating for the base upgraded to Extremely Safe!'

"John, are you ever going to tell me..." Jiang Roulan seemed to be about to ask about my secret, but then she shook her head and showed a faint smile. "No, forget it. When you feel I can be trusted, I am willing to listen then."

I climbed off the floor and wiped off the dust.

Sadly, I couldn't clean that without using an actual mop, so I couldn't wait for Shen Yifei and Qinglan to arrive.

'Somehow, I feel Jiang Roulan would make the best girlfriend...'

"Well... all you need to know for now, is that this floor is completely safe from all the zombies and unwanted people outside... thanks for trusting me."

Her eyes narrowed into crescent shapes as she smiled. "I should be thanking you, right?"

It was a little difficult to look at her with such a beaming smile, and I didn't like the fact that it felt like she could look through me.

So I rushed into the lift and pressed the top floor button.

However, what did I expect?

Her muscular leg and plump chest pushed through the door a moment before they closed as she stood beside me and leaned on the metal wall.

Then she asked.

"Are you running away, John?"